5/28/2009

Unlocks are all fine and dandy, but in the first 4/5 months of launch, I never got a Tome Tactic (that the podcasts kept talking about), much less found a hidden scroll for a pocket item, other than the revolting crock which wasn't too impressive...

The earliest one i've been able to find was a two parter.. which i doubt most people would normally find (Boon of the Implacable).. but I found this the other day, thanks to Tome Titan and running around alot in Talabecland.

Found: Talabecland Destro Area Coords: 30k, 16kWhere: At the top of the Horned Tower, facing the south side.. click on the wooden partReward:Skaven Tome Tactic! (most tome tactics, you need 4-5 fragments to unlock it, this one only requires one... only drawback is you don't see skaven too often... atleast I haven't)

I was estatic and almost dumb-founded today when I logged in with my Squig Herder to find that Order had actually taken keeps and BO's in Averlorn (T3) and we had enough people online to take the keep. Actually.. we only had half a warband which grew to 3/4 of a warband. AND Order was actually defending the keep too.. only about half a warband tho, but i've been in a 6 man destro wb and defended a keep against a full WB of Order... so it is possible. We went on to take both keeps, surprisingly rolled order even tho they hid in the Lord Room, and went on to cap both Elf and Chaos areas...

I hope... that people stay interested till we all get to T4.. even though we are so dominant in both T2 and T3.. the IC always gets attacked.. I haven't really seen Altdorf getting attacked since coming back to Vortex.. oh well =)

5/22/2009

Yeah.. I think my last blog was a bit too ranty.. but i think i'm entitled to it, it is a blog afterall. I find people on xanga where my original personal blog resides, either:

1. Have interesting, thought provoking things to talk/write about- which I appologize for not doing enuf of that, I would rather play than blog lol- and i designed the site more for unlocks than entries

2. Write about their daily going ons- which is kinda on the boring side /skip

3. Rants- which you have to admit are helpful in releasing that built up tension

Lol "Open letter to mythic",,, that IS very fanboi..

I love the game, it was totally worth the wait... possibly better (?) than the excruiating wait for WoW.Lots of great ideas (pq's, tome of knowledge) and i liked their niche (orvr).

They listened to their feedback and always seemed to try to address them as best they could and much better than any other mmo company; I tried taking information technology in univeristy and found I couldn't grasp the basic concepts of programming and went into business instead, so i totally understand, it is a work in progress, and if they could, they would.

There are issues of course; which honestly, don't bother me too much... it bothers me that it bothers other people which can cause rage quits.BUT ill admit; I haven't encountered constant crashes, bugged characters, or other persistent game-breaking issues.I think i'd probably rage quit too tho.. thankfully my computer **finds some wood to knock on** has been good to me.

What causes my addiction and loss of interest is not any of that really; its really only one thing: other people.When there are lots of people that are playing, it keeps me in it as they talk about it, strategize, thinking about it, and more exciting.

Xbox has it right: "Its fun to play together"- last night i was watching my brother play some sort of multiple choice trivia game on xbox live with his friend.. and it was exciting b/c it was against so many peopleIf you go through the gate at the back of the Inevitable City, it teleports you to an area that actually looks like this.. smexy!

But when there aren't people to play with that you personally know, even an mmo can be lonely. Sure, get to know more people, join a guild, get on their vent, etc etc.I'm just not like that, and its a bit disappointing that they all left (especially the ones that doesn't tell you).And who wants to do scenarios/orvr with Pugs?..ugly little things..

Lol; I kinda wish this all happened AFTER Land of the Dead expansion came out, but its alright.I'll still play, maybe change my playstyle a bit (before it was more sc's, pqing and questing with the gf/guild)... ill probably concentrate on my squig herder, whom I absolutely love..

I kinda spoiled my readers with daily updates and unlocks, but there will have to be slightly less (ill try every other day; but we'll get quality unlocks).Hope there are still those that will come here and read and find some great tome unlocks!

5/20/2009

Beh... I have that same feeling I had a few times 3/4 months ago. And I don't even think that long.. How long has WAR been out? Basically, I think one of my closest friends Requiem who rejoined us in WAR has quit again. You know it. You've seen probably many of your own friends leave WAR. Sometimes they complain about this or that, or they just stop coming online. And you don't find out till you see them in RL and they like

"Oh.. yea, I quit...sorry for not telling you."

I hate that. Have the decency to let your friends know... but then again, its just a game right? ... or a passion that you put many hours into every day. Something that consumes your thoughts countless hours of the day. Lol; you know how they say guys think about sex "X amount of times a day", thats how it is with the addictiveness of MMO's like WAR.

Found: Mount Bloodhorn PvE area Coords: 3.5k, 61kWhere: Just by a tree, its a named (Maegda) SpriteReward: Mythical Tome Tactic Fragment (yayyyy....)

Open letter to Mythic...Why has SO many people left WAR? Well you already know..But... GASP.. let me tell you why I want to quit.. its because everyone around me is quitting too. That my girl friend Stig couldn't log into her DoK for the past month, had to spend 2 hours on the phone with your tech, finallllly uninstalled the whole game (oh by the way, it worked on my computer).. then it worked.... ONLY to have her Magus then be glitched and crash every 5 minutes.

I always told my friend Requiem.. don't worry buddy, I'll be here even till the next MMO. THATS how committed i am. How much I like the game. Geez, so much time well wasted when i could/SHOULD be doing more critical things in life.

I always said too, that why should Mythic care that they aren't WoW? They still have thousands of subscribers every month playing (and hence paying for) their game... it obviously didn't help that WoW came out with a major expansion the next month or so after.. but it was a major drop in subscribers! Yeah, we sold the most Xxxxx... but then you had such a big drop in active subscribers.. and they you gotta consolidate so many servers.. The game isn't WoW, its a niche game.. and maybe thats what turns off SOME people..

My own personal wishlist includes (which i don't see happening):- more people doing public quests- more low lvl accessible dungeons- more scenario pops~~why this won't happen.. is that the game IS ORvR.. to do anything else is kinda pointless/rewards isn't as good

- less glitches- less general crashes (i remember the days i would avoid the Inevitable City like the plague b/c it was instant crash for me)- i guess for the higher end people, less zone crashes- less graphical anomalies- less getting stuck on anything i walk into (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)~~geez how much does that p!ss you off? getting stuck to a wall... jumpjumpjumpjumpjumpjumpjumpjumpjumpjumpjumpjumpjumpjumpjumpjump"You are stuck..."

I still love the game, don't get me wrong.. I've been playing my dok with Stig but only when she's on. Today, played a bit with my blackguard, love the high armor, the mechanic (hate + tactics = aoe!aoe!aoe!aoe!aoe!aoe!aoe!aoe!aoe!aoe! = efficiency), and then played a bit with my Squig Herder... he's great in Orvr.. takes down things pretty well for a lowbie.. not 'too' dependent on gear (like my dok, omg another rant in a sec), great range.. easy abilities to love =)

Oh one thing about the new 1.3 patch... damn you mythic.. damn you damn you damn you! spending SO much time grinding influence AND renown to find out my purple-chalice -of-gf-hating-me-b/c-i-keep-playing-it-even-tho-shees-not-on.

THAT purple chalice.. is now going to be the purple-chalice-of-I-wasted-so-much-time-to-obtain-to-have-mythic-nerf-it-chalice. B/c they are nerfing the soul essence regeneration... AND causing some of my most potent heals into longer casting ones... fannnntassstic..

/light the room on fire and cause server-wide crash

**oh just found out the gf is cancelling her acct... one less reason to play.. besides everyone else losing interest...

"A name reflects it's owner's nature, but what if that name really is false?If something goes by a false name, would it mean that thing is false, false by nature?" ~gundam seed destinyI'm proud of my guild; we are quite dominant in most aspects of the game.Whether when we lead good warbands in open rvr.Or when we dominate in sc's (either by winning, or out dps/healing/renown/xp/etc)I'm concerned about our lvl as a guild; being that we had tons of very addicted members at launch and then everyone just left (thank you WoW), and then eventually I had to leave too for friends that actually did stay, but in Order on Volkmar server.Coming back to Destruction was refreshing, the DoK being a very fun and flexible class. And even though we're a lvl 15 guild which isn't anything to scoff at, there are many guilds that stayed from the get go, constantly recruited and have taken over many keeps and are wayyyy higher lvled than we are.The dilemma I face now is that though my guild recruits on an on and off basis, because we are laid back, we don't have much of a screening process which has resulted in us having some really young AND immature players.The plus side of this is that they may play alot giving us good xp and guild money/loot.BUT then i have to hear this whiney child spam guild chat with his nonsense.Yes, i'm very happy that you're going to go on your bike at 7.... but that is too much information for the rest of us.So not only does he annoy me and everyone else in the guild, he acts immature when conversing with others in the server.NOT good; we may remember the good players, but we will most certainly remember forever the bad and annoying players.I remember SS the squig herder who i purposely came to Ellyrion to, just to NOT heal you, laugh at your corpse and jump on it for good measure (i'm a bitter healer).Or V-man, who only got good heals and rezzes b/c you were in my sc and i wanted renown. Otherwise i'd tenderize your corpse too!He's only in the guild now b/c he was from the old guild in Volkmar, otherwise he'd be gone a long time ago...

5/17/2009

Sorry about the delay, went to the cottage; unfortunately the weather was terrible; sunny but extremely cold from the wind.So with everyone talking and analyzing the new patch, I'll continue to reveal some more unlocks.

Found: Marsh of Madness, Order pve area Coords: 56k, 31kWhere: In a ravine, under some treesReward: Title: The Silencer (one of my favorites!)

Found: Marsh of Madness Coords: 50k, 53kWhere: South East part of MoM, activate the tomb stone

5/13/2009

Found: Troll Country Orvr Coords: 7.4k, 52kWhere: in between Stone Troll keep and bo to the south.Reward: History Tome unlock on Taal; hey its a mini keg!

Found: Troll Country Orvr Coords: 3.7k, 54kWhere: Between stone troll keep and the BO in those bushes

Reward: Pocket Item:Fear in a bottle (very cool graphic... IF you can buy it) :P

Yeaaaa.... our guild, Wake of Corruption on Vortex is now lvl 15 (obbbviously, we'd be higher lvl if we didn't do order on Volkmar); so you get to see the heraldry on your cloak! I was so excited... except we gotta wait till we're lvl 20 guild to be able to SEE the actual main symbol. That Mythic is such a kuk tease. Honestly.. you work so hard to get a 'reward' and then you gotta wait an eternity or 5 more lvls to see it.

Funny story; Order had captured the other night every keep and BO in t2 in Vortex and all we had left was Cascades of Thunder Keep in Ellyrion. I thought they were going to take it to lock the zone, so I claimed my first keep AND upgraded it to lvl 2.. throughout the night, I saw every 5 minutes 20 silver being drained from the guild bank.... tic toc tic toc........ No one attacked the keep...

I logged... and found out the next day, we ran out of money at 4 in the morning and lost control of our keep. LOL.....

5/10/2009

I have to review what Jeff Hickman said about the lvl of participation.. something about how lvl 25s would have 'difficulty' accessing it.. what does that mean? That b/c the baddies are lvl 30+ ill need to make sure i'm grouped, or are restricted to certain parts of the game?

5/08/2009

Found: Nordland Coords: 59k, 12kWhere: Behind a tree, near an Order PQ; he'll attack you and when he's defeated you'll get the unlock.Reward: Title: The Infected

Found: Barak Varr Coords: 21k, 47kWhere: on the left side of a trench on the way to the Order warcamp, just talk to Ragakk the Orge Bull.

Reward: Title: The Crusher

So blogging time.. did it during work today during a lull in calls..

Everyone has their own reasons for doing things.Everyone is entitled to their own opinion and to be able to do their own thing.

Rage dumping/quitting i've done alot myself.Why just the other day, i was cooking and b/c i didn't have any help and couldn't find some main ingredient, i raged and didn't make any salad.You don't make friends with salad anyways.We rage, we work out, we vent to other people, we blog about it, we eat icecream, we scream...except for physical rage, most ways are acceptable.

But people that get upset at an MMO b/c of the way it's designed, or due to lag, or programming and then quit the game entirely... i think is a tad immature.i honestly, tried to do programming in university and it was an EPIC FAIL... (ended up in business instead)i've gotten mad at my games probably more than anything else in life.. which is silly in retrospectwe have to realize that its just a game, designed to (addict us... i mean) entertain us and be relaxing. Like Paul Barnett said in so many pre-launch podcasts, they wanted to make it a hobby experience, where you play it, you think about it, talk about it, you do things related about it (blogging), you want to get back in it, you breathe and live it.My advice is to try not to get so mad when the server is being stupid (see: zone crashes and the lag monster) or the game is not programmed the way you'd like it to bei'm not gonna say "go make your own game then if you think it's so easy"just to not be so serious

Sometimes I think its better that YOU rage quit.I'm not being offensive at all.Think of how many hours a day of you play.Days a week.Weeks a month.I'm addicted; i feel the need to play every day, a couple hours (b/c what can you really do in 1-2 hours?, lord it takes a half hour to log sometimes!) each time... imagine what i could be doing to improve myself instead?Read up on many self-improvement books (i can think of 5 atleast right now that i have)Learn more about the stock markets so i can make more money.Work on my resume and do job searching (for a better, higher paying job that has a future)Help out in the house more, organize... whateverSo many things I could be doing instead of gaming...But I love it, and will just need to learn better time management.

So farewell to those that rage quit. Hopefully instead of getting addicted to another game, you'll find more time to spend with your loved ones, improve yourself, live life to it's fullest!And for us still playing, especially those with low willpower, either use some pots or tallys (lol) and learn some self control ;)

5/07/2009

Found: Barak Varr Coords: 20k, 51kUnder a bridge pretty close to the order warcamp; just normal mob, not champ.

Reward:Bestial Tactic..yayyy....

Found: Shadowlands ORvR Area Coords: 35k, 54kIf you head from spites reach towards Ellyrion, these bushes/trees are found on your left. You'd pass them and never think to look within!

Reward: Pocket Item: Broken Bowstring

Another first with WAR, was this was the first time I ever used Vent to play with other people, on an MMO. I've used it before (only for a very short duration) on Day of Defeat or maybe Call of Duty, but its all cussing and people I didn't know. See: Boring/Useless.

Vent is very useful... IF properly executed. huh?Well vent is useless if you're all soloing and using it to just chat about nothing. Other than creating bonds... there is no practical use in that case.But when used in questing, pq's, orvr, or scenarios is where it really shines.

Some people still hate to go on vent. The setup is not the easiest and some people don't like their voice on it..

Question: How many times have you tried to take down a defended keep's oil... its got a sliver of life left and somehow they are able to heal it back to full health, and that whole time you then wasted trying when you could be attacking the wall defenders or the door?

Answer: Every freaking time.

With vent, you can coordinate with your fellow ranged dps-ers and when it gets really low, to all unleash your morale abilities all at one time to ensure it gets taken down.

OR: your group sees a slayer coming towards your squishies but he has a healer friend, what do you do? Because what happens if you concentrate on the slayer, but no one is paying attention to the healer? or if you kill the healer, but the slayer kills all your healers?

Answer: Some people concentrate on protecting the healers, while attacking (and thus distracting the healer from healing the slayer) AND be able to coordinate killing either one/both effectively with minimal losses.

AND its much easier to do all this talking about it ahead of time or on the fly. And who is going to do that? You are. On vent; NOT typing it out, b/c if you're typing, you're not fighting/helping.

One thing i'd like to see in WAR, but this is may not be feasible is to have an in-game vent. How cool would that be? You join a party, and you join that vent of players. You join a warband and you join them. That tank is attacking the keep lord's champion turret instead of holding agro? (YES i'm looking at you Correl in Vortex! thats why you aren't guilded!) Kick him and get a REAL tank.

Feasibility? I dunno, it would cost alot? Well ... we do pay a subscription each month for the new content, support, etc, I think it would be very beneficial as outlined. I'd pay about 3-5$ more for that IF it was bug free **chokes from laughing** Imagine WOW with that.. 12 million people on vent? lol They can afford it :P

Anyways; time to make pots and tallys for the guild members.. my work never ends.

5/06/2009

Found: Marsh of Madness ORvR Area Coords: 29k, 29kFound on the left side of the keep (if you are looking at the front door), on a pile of debris.

Reward: Pocket Item: Emergency Mushroom, where when you activate, it gets tossed in the air and showers some green gas around. mmm.. good!

So lets talk about 2 thing today.

Name Definition

1. Thank you Grimnir for the wcpi entry; much appreciated! One thing tho; I guess in re-reading my entry of "Leslie Rocks" i was a bit vague of who Leslie actually is and having a pseudo name of Wanderlust implies a girl.... /thinking... ....thinking... Dammit (and everyone blushes). Heh. She's my talented friend who hates WoW/WAR as it distracts her bf many many many hours a day. lol But she's still willing to make me a kick @ss banner. I'm glad that you enjoy the entries all =)

2. ModsI've played many many MMO's and there hasn't been too many prolific mods except recently for WoW and WAR. I've never really 'resorted' to them as I'm lazy, and I don't want to spend the time having to do any special to get it to work. WAR is the first experience i've had in installing and loving mods. I find its very easy; go to a mod site, the only one i know of right now is Curse.com. Install it using the curse client, or download the file; unzip it to the add-on folder, log in, and voila! Its ready! And with a few modifications to the UI, you can move it to wherever you like.

With the recent patch to WAR, it seems alot easier to have mods (i personally use a cultivation one and a tome titan one) as you can have templates for your individual character, so some have certain mods, while other characters have others. So if my blackguard wasn't a cultivator, I wouldn't need to hide the window or have it as wasted space.

5/05/2009

Almost in every Open RvR area, there is usually one of these hidden scrolls lying VERY hidden on the ground, where when you find it you get a nice xp bonus, a pocket item and much more importantly, a tome unlock! :D

Once again blogspot you thwart my picture taking (i'm seriously thinking about changing to a different site now; b/c how could you see what the pics are of?). But below is a pic of a hidden scroll where the white circle is.

Found: Barak Varr (dwarf t2 zone) Coords: 31k, 35kBehind the Dok Karaz keep as you see very close to a rock.

Reward: Pocket item Simpleton's Guide to RunesI must have played the game from launch for a good 2 months and never really got a pocket item other than the Crock Pot from killing a bridge troll in Ostland which when activated makes it looks like you have explosive diarrhea! I'll show a pic of one of my other tome unlock addicted characters that has 2 pages of unlocked items (granted if you can see it)

What is different about this picture than the usual?The user interface; I love how in WAR you can adjust it totally to the way you want it. I wanted to try something new for my DoK.1. Move the map from the top right to the bottom (i'm still looking up there for my map tho)2. I stacked all my action bars and moved them slightly to the right... (i dunno about how effective that will be..3. I moved most graphical components to the bottom left area4. My plant making add-on (which is fantastic by the way), is next to my chat screen and soul essence graphic. Find it at Curse. I think it's called MGRemix.

6. My chat screen is expanded farther so i can read more (See: ignore more people, lol)7. You can't see it, but i moved the party portraits higher up, closer to mine own so they don't overlap on my chat window.